During OSCE Chairmanship Kazakhstan is to strengthen humanitarian basket - Ambassador-at-large M. Dzharbussynova
ANA. February 24. KAZINFORM /Dimash Syzdykov/ Out of all three OSCE dimensions the issues of the humanitarian basket receive the greatest public attention as far as they touch upon the significant aspects of life. Moreover, the Organization itself declares this dimension as not less important than cooperation in the field of economy and security, and practically shows keen interest in it.
Ambassador-at-large of the Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs Madina Dzharbussynova told about the plans and prospects of Kazakhstan on enhancement of the humanitarian component during the international conference Human Dimension of the OSCE: General and Topical Priorities in 2010 held in Astana.
According to her, being the acting chair of the OSCE, Kazakhstan will continue work on enhancement of the human dimension both inside the country and in the OSCE space for the development of democratic institutions, protection of human rights and freedoms, promotion of supremacy of law thereby rising efficiency of humanitarian security measures.
In this regard Kazakhstan's chairmanship determined three principal priorities in its work on human dimension: the tolerance and nondiscrimination, the gender equality, the struggle against human trafficking with a special focus on traffic in children. While choosing the topics Kazakhstan was guided by its own experience and the necessity to continue work on those issues the OSCE could reach certain progress in, taking into account the sequence of previous chairs and past success.
An important event in this context has become the decision of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the OSCE member states (December 2009, Athens) on holding the OSCE Conference on Tolerance and Nondiscrimination in Astana in June 2010, which is destined to bring worthy contribution to the process of further enhancement of cooperation between different cultures and civilizations as well as practical implementation of earlier decisions of the Organization.
An integral part of promotion of tolerance and nondiscrimination is the formation of national minorities that is still the topical problem in the OSCE space.
The issues of protection of women's rights and further development of gender balance, provision of equal rights and opportunities for women in public and political life as well as nondiscrimination against women are not less important.
In this regard one of the additional sessions will be devoted to promotion of gender balance and participation of women in political life. The member states will be given an opportunity to discuss the difficulties and success reached within the implementation of the OSCE commitments on gender equality including legislative reforming and other practical mechanisms in accordance with the OSCE Action Plan for the Promotion of Gender Equality. The session will enable to evaluate the efficiency of measures taken in this field.
As for the issue of traffic in human beings, which was also defined by Kazakhstan as one of the priorities and as a topic for the additional session, M. Dzharbussynova pointed out that the given problem has become global in scale and a part of transnational crime.
Besides, it was noted that a conference dedicated to the 20th anniversary of adoption of the Copenhagen Document, the fundamental document of the OSCE human dimension, will be held within the framework of promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the OSCE space under the aegis of Kazakhstan's chairmanship.